By Philip Yeung
Jimmy Lai is no freedom fighter. He is a weapon of war and is used as such by forces hostile to China. Martin Luther King Jr. he is not. He doesn't even qualify as Dr. King's dumb cousin.
King famously declared that "I have a dream." Lai has nothing to declare, but a hellish nightmare for the city that has brought him fame and fortune. There is not a noble bone in his body. So consumed is he by his hatred for China that everything else has become secondary.
His crusade in life is not to fight for freedom but to destroy and demonize China, and above all, bring down the Chinese Communist Party.
Hong Kong had given him more freedom than he could handle. At that time, there were an average of 19 street protests in Hong Kong on any given day. The very existence of his rabid anti-communist newspaper confirmed Hong Kong's status as the freest city in the world.
He was given plenty of political elbow room to do harm. He openly lobbied the US to use its worst weapons against China and sanctions against his own city.
He has disqualified himself as a member of the human race when he uttered these unforgivable words:
"You have nuclear weapons. Use them, and China will be finished in one minute."
These are not the words of a freedom fighter. They belong to a disciple of the devil.
When Lai invited the US to nuke his own country, he deserves no mercy.
Lai, carrying a British passport, felt he was above Chinese law. In his black-and-white worldview, China is pure black evil, totally blind to its monumental triumph in lifting 800 million people out of abject poverty. He has frozen China in a time-warp.
Lai weaponized his unfettered freedom and brought Hong Kong anarchy and misery.
He used his Apple Daily as a vehicle for inciting the young and impressionable into becoming street rioters. Presidents of local universities, traditionally the bastion of freedom of speech, were cowering in corners, fearful of being harmed by troublemakers. It was a very sad sight to behold in this once romantic city, dearly loved by the world.
Western press and politicians don't know that he was, in fact, fighting for tiny stakes, for the privilege of one-person-one-vote for a local leader who must, by law, be approved by Beijing. Under colonial rule, the governor was sent from London. Where was Lai when Britain denied Hong Kong democracy?
This stupid and stubborn man has lost all sense of proportion, trashing an entire city for political peanuts, turning it into a bitterly divided place, friends against friends, because they found ourselves on different sides of the political divide. Thanks to Lai, Hong Kong may never be the same again.
But to America, Lai is the perfect pawn, taking orders from his puppet master in Washington. He was a giant wrecking ball. Unrestrained, Lai became a domestic terrorist without bombs.
Busy playing hero to the world, Lai turned anti-communism into a religion and anti-China into a full-time business.
His newspaper business became a side-hustle for funding his anti-government activities, while he basked in the spotlight of international attention.
Wake up and smell the coffee! Stop hero-worshipping a pathological anti-communist, just because you find communism ideologically distasteful.
The damage Lai has inflicted goes far beyond the city boundaries, setting in motion dangerous regional chain reactions.
Lai helped to discredit the ingenious One-Country-Two-Systems that would have laid the foundation for the reunification of Taiwan. But the violent unrest in Hong Kong has killed the concept as a Taiwan solution. At one point, the Taiwanese separatist leader Tsai Ing-Wen was faltering on a dismal 12% of popular support. Lai had gifted her a second political life.
What is even more sickening is that tensions over Taiwan have drawn Japan into the fray.
The repercussions are rippling across the Pacific. The Taiwan tensions have ignited Japanese ambition to re-arm itself, threatening military intervention if hostilities erupt across the strait. A Japan with nuclear ambitions spells the end of peace in the Pacific. World War III looms. Lai is worth 25 divisions to the American military in destructive power.
He has also driven a wedge between China and Britain as both attempt to thaw their relations.
Complaining about his 20-year sentence, his wife says he will die in prison as a martyr. Do I feel sorry for him? Not when I see the harm he has done to this magical city and its beautiful people.
Please be fair. Would Britain or any country allow its citizens to become open traitors? Would they have let them do what Lai did to Hong Kong to satisfy his obsessive-compulsive anti-communism? MI5 would have stripped him of his citizenship and locked him up as a dangerous subversive. So, spare us your double standards and fake outrage.
Post-handover, Hong Kong became the world's capital of de facto freedom, where Lai was free to openly call for the downfall of the communist party.
His "fight for freedom" is but a sickness. His irrationality and destructive impulses make him the enemy of democracy. A man devoid of reason and goes all out for slash-and-burn is but a political junkie, not a hero of the people.
Lai is a tragic, misguided figure who has destroyed himself and this once charmingly apolitical city. If anybody qualifies as "the sinner of a thousand years", Lai does. He belongs behind bars, the longer the better.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | Travel advice to Western leaders: 'Always wear a green hat when coming to China'
Opinion | Canada, a middle power, stands tall and tilts at the windmill of American super-power
Comment